Mafia: Definitive Edition

The other guides are alright, but I wanted to pass along some tips and give some advice for everyone going for this challenging, but rewarding, achievement! (While it's true that you can play the game on Classic mode to get the collectibles and the "A Life of Crime" achievement on your 1st playthrough, I wouldn't recommend it.)

Some starting tips:
-When starting the story, you set the settings. Put the aim-assist on HIGH.
-Whenever you start a chapter at the bar, be sure to go see Vinny before progressing! This will give you a chance to pick up your choice of weapons (I highly recommend the gold pistol if you pre-ordered the game, the tommy gun, and a knife as your melee).
-If it's your 2nd playthrough, or your 1st and you really don't care about the conversations Tommy has with his passengers when driving to a location, press down on the d-pad to skip non-important drives to save more time when completing a chapter. You can access this setting in the options menu!
-Consciously think about reloading your weapon, because any leftover ammo will be lost; be as conservative as possible with your ammo.
-Enemies are a lot tougher and take a good amount of shots to take down. Weapons like the tommy gun and shotgun are good, but I honestly kept finding myself using the gold pistol (or semi-automatic pistol) most of the time. It takes 3-4 shots to kill enemies with a pistol (or 1 with a good old-fashioned headshot). It definitely made a difference in shoot-outs.
-When shooting, it's better to take short bursts of fire rather than dragging out trying to shoot an enemy (especially when using the tommy gun). In fact, I got through these shoot-outs relatively quickly by shooting only one time on an enemy in and out of cover.

Chapters 1-4:
These first few chapters aren't too bad on Classic mode. Be sure to keep the above tips in mind to get through them relatively quickly.

Chapter 5:
Honestly, this chapter is probably the hardest to complete because of the mandatory race near the end. BE PREPARED TO SPEND SOME TIME ON THIS. Using the Ram feature (tapping, NOT holding, while driving) gives you a small speed boost and helps you make clean turns. If you spin out or crash at all, re-load the checkpoint. The 1st turn, in my opinion, is the most difficult. I got through it and all the others by slowing down a lot before the curve, pressing and then letting go of , and using Ram to keep the turn clean. Don't be afraid to ride in the grass. The 1st lap sets the course for the remainder of the race- if you're not in 4th or 5th place by the end of the 1st lap, re-load the checkpoint; on the final stretch, look behind you and try to block the driver behind you as they are much faster than you on Classic.

Chapter 7:
Not too bad either. Remember to conserve ammo, be on the look-out for first-aid boxes, and don't rush. This chapter also has a car chase scene; since the driving mode is locked on Simulation, driving is tougher in general. Be cautious of your speed because all turns are much more difficult.

Chapter 8:
I'd recommend finding Michelle in room 208 first because after it's done, it won't raise any alarms. Killing the manager in the lounge second makes the rest of the shooting scene more linear and smoother of a pace while trying to get to the office to plant the bomb. Once you and Sam are trying to escape the police, try to go down a secluded alleyway. This will buy you some more breathing room from the cops.

Chapter 9:
Honestly, this chapter is quite annoying as well once you get to the car chase scene when you're defending the truck from the cops. Since you can get killed a lot quicker in Classic, the difficulty skyrockets. Be prepared to die a few times (unless you get lucky). Try to be as accurate while shooting the tommy gun as you can- I recommend trying to hit the drivers of the cars first because it gives a good chance of the car spinning out and no longer being an issue.

Chapter 10:
Try to be as sneaky as possible so you won't have to take out as many enemies in a shoot-out. Once Frank is taken away in a car, you make your way to him. I got through this entire scene without shooting anyone by making my way to the building on the far left as you start approaching further to the objective. Always be cautious and duck behind cover as much as possible to get your bearings on enemies nearby. Silently take out any enemies you come across and you should be able to make it all the way to Frank without having to shoot anyone.

Chapter 11:
Not too bad. When you're escaping with Salvatore, leave the mansion, and then try to park in a secluded driveway or alleyway and just wait for your wanted stars to go away. It takes a few minutes but makes finishing the chapter a lot easier!

Chapter 12:
The shoot-outs aren't too bad- molotovs are your friend here! When you have to protect the truck, be careful with your car speed and turns since driving on Simulation is tougher. Overall, not that hard of a chapter.

Chapter 15:
When chasing Sergio on the motorcycle, keep your distance from the car (but obviously don't let him escape). Doing this will ensure that no one from the car can shoot you so you'll be able to have more health once the shooting scene starts.

Chapter 16:
Overall, not too bad. Keep in mind that enemy locations aren't shown on the map, so try and take your time because an enemy can come up from your blindspot and take you out. When following the plane, it lands in the direction of the race track, so driving as if you're going there can help shave off your time in getting to the wreck.

Chapter 17:
Everything leading up to escaping the prison isn't too difficult. When near the exit of the prison, you'll see a police car that would be the easiest escape vehicle. Instead of automatically getting in the car and trying to drive off with a 5 star wanted level, turn back and start to head back into the prison. This will break the cops' line of sight with you, and they'll start to search for you. Just wait and make sure they don't see you, and within 1-2 minutes, your wanted level will disappear and you won't have to drive and escape the police at all.

Chapter 18:
Patience is key here! The box of cigars is literally the last one you'll need to check. Also, the regular workers can be taken out with melee attacks even if they spot you. There's no way that they can sound the alarm. Take your time scoping out the best path when avoiding roadblocks.

Chapters 19 & 20:
Lots of shooting in these chapters, so stay vigilant of your ammo and health. Overall, they're not that difficult, but you might die a few times!


I really hope this helps someone out! :)

My guide will focus more on tips and tricks for regular gameplay and certain hard chapters than explaining all the chapters. If you want a complete run down of all the chapters, the other guides will be more help.

First is just tips for going about the city and gameplay and stuff.

[[[A big thing that people seem to not know is that you HAVE to keep it at Classic the whole playthrough. You change the difficulty at ANY point, doesn't matter if you didn't hit a save point or haven't completed the chapter; the achievement is voided and you have to start over. Make sure if you go into Free Ride and change the difficulty to lower than Classic, change it back before leaving Free Ride and going into Story Mode because it will keep it at that difficulty.]]]

-First is circumnavigating the whole realistic reloading thing. When you're running around the dead guys, picking up ammo, have whatever main gun you chose unequipped (i.e. have your sidearm out) so then the ammo goes straight into the current mag instead of your "reserve" ammo if you had it equipped. That way you artificially reload the gun and don't have to worry about loosing those remaining 14 rounds because you want a full mag.
-Same thing goes for whatever sidearm you choose, but, in all honesty, keeping an eye on your sidearm ammo isn't important as there's always pistol or shotgun ammo to pick up.
-The Shotgun and maybe the Lupara (I never used it so correct me if I'm wrong) isn't affected by the reloading thing, so you can reload all you want.

-You can skip most of the driving. If you don't care about the dialogue or it's your second or whatever playthrough, when you get into a car at any point in the game, keep a look out for a prompt in the lower left corner saying to press down on d-pad to skip the drive. It will cut down play time by probably half and you get into the action a lot faster. I finished Classic difficulty in about 6.5 hours and it was all thanks to Skip Drive.

-Use the speed limiter to slow down very fast without swerving or spinning out the car. You might still have some fish-taily shenanigans but it's a lot more effective than trying to go from 100 to 35 all by yourself.

-You can have aim assist. I've seen a lot of people unsure if it would void the achievement. You can crank it to high and still get it. Just keep ya little fingies off the difficulty selection as I said above.

-If you hear "Burn him up" or something along the lines of someone telling a dude to throw a molotov at your face, take him out quick. Two shots with a pistol will make the guy drop it. If you don't shoot him in time, RUN. Because a molotov will decimate your health or just straight kill you in 0.01 seconds if it lands directly on you. Getting bipped a couple times as you run away is better than getting roasted.

-You're best tactic in a gunfight is to just pop out of cover long enough to get a shot or burst of fire off and go right back into cover. Always wait for enemies to poke out first.

-The enemy has a firing pattern for each gun. Pistol guys usually shoot 3 times before pausing or going back into cover. Tommy guys either fire for a couple of seconds OR he'll empty the whole mag. Be wary if he only fires for a bit because the guy will continue once your pop out of cover. Shotgun dudes fire slowly, so try to pop the guy in between shots. Bolt action guys do A LOT of damage so watch out for the glint from the scope. All around, your best tactic is to just dome all of them since a headshot means death no matter what gun you're using.

Now I'll cover the "painful chapters" that will probably take you a few tries. Or a lot of tries.

--Chapt. 5 (Fairplay):
-The objective is to be at most in 5th place by the end of the first lap and in 2nd place by the end of the second lap. Most of your progress will be made in the first half of each lap and try to always stay on the inside of the track. If you aren't in 5th place at the 90* left turn where the red car slams into the wall; I would advise restarting to checkpoint. If you hard crash, like slam straight into a barrier, or spin out, restart checkpoint because you'll lose a lot of ground you can't make up.

-The reason why I say 2nd place is if you're in 2nd place on the 3rd lap, the guy in 1st place will crash on the last turn and will hand you the win. If you can get into 1st place before all that, because I have a couple times, great, all you have to do is bumper block any cars from passing you. You can also do the ramming trick (pressing A as you go straight) to get extra speed on the straights.

Here are tips:
-At the starting line, turn on the speed limiter so you don't spin tires and turn it off once you get up to like 20 mph. Stay on the right side of the track because all the NPC racers will be on the left and sometimes they will slow down as a pack when the Euro guy blows his engine, allowing you to shoot off to 6th or 7th place right off the bat.
-Use the speed limiter trick at the first corner so you can gun it down the straightaway for as long as possible before having to slow down. You can try the side ramming trick alongside this (just press A as you turn and you'll do a lot tighter turn without sliding or spinning out) but I never really got that to work for me because I have horrible timing skills and always end up in a barrier.
-Don't go for the jump off the hill at the S turn because you will eat a barrier and you will lose a lot of progress.

--Chapt. 8 (The Saint and The Sinner):
-When you're first getting away from the cops after booming the hotel, try to take cover and bip the three cops in the windows. It'll save you some health.
-The church gunfight can be simplified if you have a bolt action so you can go ahead and kill the dude up top. When you get to the upstairs pews, try to take out the dudes on the other side of the church so it's less to deal with as you cross the balcony where the dude with the tommy gun was.
-Getting away can be simple or hard, it's all kind of RNG. I always raid the health cabinet, run for the hearse, and hope for the best. Try to go down alleys and small roads to get away.

--Chapt. 9 (A Trip to the Country)
-Getting away in the truck is also RNG. Try to aim for the driver or the grille if you aren't that accurate. Do it in short bursts if you're aiming for the driver because recoil will cause you to miss a lot. Being accurate is your soulmate in this section. There's been times when I couldn't pop out of cover without being blasted and there were times when I just Rambo'ed out the back of the truck, dodging every single bullet. Just keep trying and you'll get it. Maybe you wont even have a problem and it'll go smooth.

--Chapt. 15 (You Lucky B*stard)
-The motorcycle is a pain but my trick is just completely letting off the gas and coasting it around corners as slow as possible without the car getting too far away from me. You don't want to be too close to the car, otherwise you'll get lit up and your health will be gone.

--Chapt. 17 (Election Campaign)
-Hard part is first getting away from cops at the prison. My tactic is to save as much as my health as possible, raiding all the med cabinets as I go down the floors and hopefully I'm full health when I get to prison gate. What I do is jump into the cop car that's sitting inside the prison walls and gun it, turning left because to the right is a blockade of cops at the turn and more will spawn. Getting away is RNG, just gun it down straightaways and try to make the cops crash into the car blockades.

--Chapt. 20 (The Death of Art)
-This chapter can take a few tries since there's just so many enemies and there's multiple levels and molotovs and grenades are being thrown at you like its a drunken WW2 Halloween party. What I did was move around when the enemies were taking cover so they never knew where exactly I was and I could get the drop on them. Try to keep a full magazine as most of the time when you come into a room, a bunch of enemies will show up, and you can try to take out a couple right off the bat. Just to make it easier on yourself.

That's all I got. Hopefully this makes it easier.

There are a few things I would like to add that the other solutions haven't included. The above solutions are great but just a few minor details can be touched up on.

The Race: As stated previously, this is the worst part of the achievement and game as a whole. One thing I found to help is that instead of using the brake of speed limiter to go around corners, use your reverse to slow as you're approaching. If you slam the brake the car tends to fish tail and spin out, but by using reverse you can have better control over the car. Also definitely use your slam to get a little extra boost but only on the major straight where the start/finish is. I found that I was doing it every chance I got a straight road and I would instinctively gently nudge the to course correct but that makes the the car slide sideways and then you have to correct yourself. Instead of trying to rewire your brain to not touch the left stick, just use the slam on the major straight when you don't have to move. Don't be afraid to use the grass in the early turns on the first lap. If you have enough speed and a good handle of the car you can drift through the grass and cover some major ground.


The Combat: The best advice I can give is to stick behind cover. If you find yourself behind a pillar or a knee high wall with 2 safe sides, switch between them. Enemies will look, aim and shoot at your last location. This means you can sneak to the other side and kill them when they're looking away.
Enemies that are about to throw a Molotov need to be dealt with asap. Either shoot them twice so they drop it or retreat just before they throw it if you're not confident you'll hit them.
Enemies outside cover will take a second to shoot. Use this to get a quick shot off. With high aim assist you should hit them and might even make them stagger. If that happens, be aggressive and fire a few more shots into them if you're not surrounded.
Learn not to constantly reload your gun. You'll lose unspent ammo if you do this except for the shotgun due to it not having a magazine. One trick I found to give you a full mag is to not have the gun equipped when you run over fallen weapons. Say you have a tommy gun with 20 rounds in the mag and 0 in reserve, if you run over another tommy gun while its equipped the new ammo will go into your reserve, but if you run over the tommy gun while you have your handgun out, the tommy gun ammo will go straight into your mag. This means you'll be ready for the next fight you get into, you won't have to reload half way through and you'll be more prepared to take on a group and not come up short in the middle of the fight.
Remember the locations of health and ammo stations. You don't always need to use them and there's no shame in backtracking later if you do need them.
Stealth IS an option on some missions. In Omerta, by sticking to the left side you only have to kill 1 enemy. Once you get past the driving section move up to the wall of the airport carpark. Head all the way left before jumping over. Keep crouched all the way then head through the staff entrance. Go through the first door on the left into the lounge. Sneak behind the guard and climb out the window. Head left behind the small barricades then straight into the open building on the left. Hide behind the filing cabinet in to hall and wait for the guard to turn around and walk away. Walk behind him, kill him and continue on. Once outside stick to the left around the buildings. Once you're behind the hangers run behind them to the right (for once) sneak around the front, vault over the small barricade and then just walk up to the door. You can also sneak through most of the prison in Election Campaign when the police are after you. Just make sure to carry your knife for some quick stealth kills from cover for this one. Also at the end of Election campaign, once you reach the front entrance, don't walk out the front gate. Head into the sewers, you can lose your wanted level by hanging out in there which avoids a troublesome car chase.


Losing The Cops: for the most part there are only a handful of times when you actually need to flee the cops in the story. If you can, try and lose them in narrow alleyways, but the best way I found was to head for the hills. If you head out of town there is far less traffic that can crash into you/block your path. I also never found a single cop roadblock. The backroads can be great to lose the police on, they can often spin out and leave you to get away and hide. Once your wanted level is gone just skip your drive back to your destination.


Apart from all that; have your aim assist on high, turn on skip non essential driving and that's it. It's still the same game, just a little more challenging. If you remember your pathing from a previous playthough you can skip some info gathering and head straight for what you need. Good luck with the race, its tricky, but doable.